nsanely Racist Chinese Detergent Ad "Cleans" a Black Man

[fantome profane]

Fair enough. I thought you were mocking the people who find it racist.

If anything I was mocking my own ineffectiveness.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I watched it. No, it's not funny and it is very racist. It's based on the old "black man going after the pure lighter-skinned woman" trope, and she's "defending" herself by shoving him away into the washer and "cleaning" him, so he emerges as a socially acceptable light-skinned Chinese man, which makes her visibly happy. It's kind of like Beauty and the Beast, where the black man is supposed to be the "ugly beast" who isn't worthy of the lighter-skinned woman. **** that ad.

(For the record, Beauty and the Beast was the first movie I saw in theaters, and I got upset at the end when the Beast turns back into the Prince. I got up out of my seat and started walking towards the screen, crying and saying "where's the Beast?!". I liked the Beast and never saw the reason why he should have to change back to get the lady. I never changed my opinion on that.)

I guess it all depends where your coming from. My friends are multicultural and we used to exchange racist type smack almost all the time just for a good hearty laugh.

Sometimes I understand things can happen in life that gets a person jaded over something that really imv isn't the intent when it's taken out of context and interpreted in another light, although I can see why some folks can interpret something like this commercial as being less than funny if life hasn't provided light hearted and harmless humor like this before.

There's a difference between real ill conceived vile hate, and that of laughing at each other's personal and physical characteristics.

We're collectively too uptight as a society about things these days and had forgotten how to laugh at each other way I see it, yet I know it depends on where you live and the people living around you.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I guess it all depends where your coming from. My friends are multicultural and we used to exchange racist type smack almost all the time just for a good hearty laugh.

Sometimes I understand things can happen in life that gets a person jaded over something that really imv isn't the intent when it's taken out of context and interpreted in another light, although I can see why some folks can interpret something like this commercial as being less than funny if life hasn't provided light hearted and harmless humor like this before.

There's a difference between real ill conceived vile hate, and that of laughing at each other's personal and physical characteristics.

We're collectively too uptight as a society about things these days and had forgotten how to laugh at each other way I see it, yet I know it depends on where you live and the people living around you.

What planet are you living on? It must be nice!

 

[Twilight Hue]

What planet are you living on? It must be nice!

The planet of New York. *grin*

My friend was Puerto Rican, one was a Pollock and the other Mexican when I worked appliance delivery long time ago.

No subject was sacred.
Black, White, Asian, Indian,
handicapped....whatever..... jokes flew off the shelves......no one ever felt offended... . Those really were fun days for us.

 

[AsianActivist]

The ad is disgusting. Next time I am in China I plan on boycotting this particular laundry detergent. That should make them reconsider their ad strategy.

You should not only boycott this particular laundry detergent, but consider boycotting ALL made in chi.na products.

 

[Revoltingest]

The planet of New York. *grin*

My friend was Puerto Rican, one was a Pollock and the other Mexican when I worked appliance delivery long time ago.

You have a "pollock" for a friend?

In SE Michiganistan, we Stoshes & Skis know how to spell "Polack".

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I guess it all depends where your coming from. My friends are multicultural and we used to exchange racist type smack almost all the time just for a good hearty laugh.

Sometimes I understand things can happen in life that gets a person jaded over something that really imv isn't the intent when it's taken out of context and interpreted in another light, although I can see why some folks can interpret something like this commercial as being less than funny if life hasn't provided light hearted and harmless humor like this before.

There's a huge difference between friends taking jabs at each other and a commercial "washing the black off."

 

[Revoltingest]

There's a huge difference between friends taking jabs at each other and a commercial "washing the black off."

What about the Italian one which washed the white off?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

What about the Italian one which washed the white off?

Just as bad.

 

[Twilight Hue]

There's a huge difference between friends taking jabs at each other and a commercial "washing the black off."

Jabs at each other? We jabbed at everyone around us too!

There's a huge difference in creating harmless ethnic humor and creating harmful ethnic "humor" which isn't humorous. But times have changed for some . Some people now just can't tell the difference and think every ethnic nuance is unbridled vile hate and the people who do it are hideous hatemongering monsters.

People for a fair part have become sensitive to just about anything now, anything like this becomes unbearably bothersome and an issue, and it's clear had completely lost any and all ability to even laugh at themselves and each other.

It is done for someone's stupid product though, and borderline ignorant, I grant that but I don't see this crossing a threshold of promoting actual hatred.

It's not like it represents a level conducent towards kkk or nazi ideology.

Incidently do you think the black dude in the commercial was forced against his will to do it?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

There's a huge difference in creating harmless ethnic humor and creating harmful ethnic "humor" which isn't humorous. But times have changed for some . Some people now just can't tell the difference and think every ethnic nuance is unbridled vile hate and the people who do it are hideous hatemongering monsters.

People for a fair part have become sensitive to just about anything now, anything like this becomes unbearably bothersome and an issue, and it's clear had completely lost any and all ability to even laugh at themselves and each other.

It is done for someone's stupid product though, and borderline ignorant, I grant that but I don't see this crossing a threshold of promoting actual hatred.

How don't you see it? They are literally portraying black skin as something that can be made better, of course the detergent won't actually "wash off blackness," but it is very much so implying that black skin is "dirty" as it is something that is being "washed off." It's hardly any different that the skin lighteners and hair straighteners that are marketed towards black men and women in America (and perhaps other places).

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Jabs at each other? We jabbed at everyone around us too!

There's a huge difference in creating harmless ethnic humor and creating harmful ethnic "humor" which isn't humorous. But times have changed for some . Some people now just can't tell the difference and think every ethnic nuance is unbridled vile hate and the people who do it are hideous hatemongering monsters.

People for a fair part have become sensitive to just about anything now, anything like this becomes unbearably bothersome and an issue, and it's clear had completely lost any and all ability to even laugh at themselves and each other.

It is done for someone's stupid product though, and borderline ignorant, I grant that but I don't see this crossing a threshold of promoting actual hatred.

It's not like it represents a level conducent towards kkk or nazi ideology.

Incidently do you think the black dude in the commercial was forced against his will to do it?

This isn't a matter of being over sensitive. I make ethnic jokes a lot with my friend, who is mixed white/East Asian (I'm mixed black/white/probably Native American). We make light-hearted jokes about Asians, whites and blacks. But it's clear we're being funny and just joking about cultural stereotypes (like ghetto culture, rednecks, East Asians and "Engrish", etc.). After all, that's our heritage, too. But there's a difference between joking about culture and behavior (which aren't inborn or innate), and demeaning people's physical features like their skin color, as if it's something "dirty" and "wrong".

 

[Twilight Hue]

How don't you see it? They are literally portraying black skin as something that can be made better, of course the detergent won't actually "wash off blackness," but it is very much so implying that black skin is "dirty" as it is something that is being "washed off." It's hardly any different that the skin lighteners and hair straighteners that are marketed towards black men and women in America (and perhaps other places).

It's clear people look and are different in appearances so yea, why not have some harmless fun with that?

Why pretend equivalence exists with outside characteristics and there is no difference between ethnic groups in that regard so as much to not acknowledge they're there?

If you want to view it in a way that it offends and is upsetting, I suppose it can be interpreted that way as well.

Race and cultural identity is always and has been a touchy subject hence the controversy here, but does every single instance of ethnic jabbing and humor be henceforth taken negatively?

I personally don't ever want to live in a society that feeds off sterility and promotes a type ignorance of itself that somehow negates and ignores ethnicity in such a way that commenting and having fun over our real life differences are the equivalence to horrible nasty things that are best left locked away in the proverbial closet.

For what people think they gain, they certainly lost more imo and that's our ability to laugh at each other's differences too.

 

[Twilight Hue]

This isn't a matter of being over sensitive. I make ethnic jokes a lot with my friend, who is mixed white/East Asian (I'm mixed black/white/probably Native American). We make light-hearted jokes about Asians, whites and blacks. But it's clear we're being funny and just joking about cultural stereotypes (like ghetto culture, rednecks, East Asians and "Engrish", etc.). After all, that's our heritage, too. But there's a difference between joking about culture and behavior (which aren't inborn or innate), and demeaning people's physical features like their skin color, as if it's something "dirty" and "wrong".

Shadow Wolf didn't directly answer yet but so you think this commercial was a forced production against the black actors will?

To explain ....

I see the inference that can be taken from the commercial, I get on how it could be construed by some in a humorless light, I do understand but at the same time it does still look like a harmless prod at someone's color by which the detergent cleans a bit too well.

I suppose I would have changed the woman's charactor so that she would have reacted with surprise rather than pleasure at her "new" man. I think that's where the main contention here lies.

That's why I viewed it as being borderline ignorant rather than racist in it's intent. This certainly can relay multiple meanings depending upon who you ask.

I see both sides here, I really do, but I don't want to see our ability to laugh at each other's differences villified and swept under the rug under a banner of ethnic neutrality.

That can make things worse in the long run I think.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Shadow Wolf didn't directly answer yet but so you think this commercial was a forced production against the black actors will?

What does that have to do with anything? There's many examples of minorities being used in media that promotes stigmas and stereotypes of their groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minstrel_show#Black_minstrels

Race fetish porn is a huge thing and it features racist tropes against non-whites. The black men in the videos are portrayed as beastly sex machines. They purposefully pair darker-skinned black men who are taller and larger in build with petite, slender blonde women (to highlight the "animalism" of the black man and the powerlessness of the "pure, innocent white girl") and make a big deal of portraying the black men as having giant penises which are "destroying" the orifices of the white woman. The really trashy videos in this genre have the white woman hurling racial slurs at the black actors, too (including "n**ger"). (There's black woman/white man porn that is also racist, portraying black women as "black whores". There is also racist cuckold porn.)

A lot of hardcore rap culture is often criticized as a modern form of minstelism for promoting harmful stereotypes of black culture (ultraviolence, gang culture, crass materialism, anti-intellectualism, racist sexual stereotypes, etc.).

There's similar examples with other ethnic groups and with LGBT people, too.

To explain ....

I see the inference that can be taken from the commercial, I get on how it could be construed by some in a humorless light, I do understand but at the same time it does still look like a harmless prod at someone's color by which the detergent cleans a bit too well.

I suppose I would have changed the woman's charactor so that she would have reacted with surprise rather than pleasure at her "new" man. I think that's where the main contention here lies.

That's why I viewed it as being borderline ignorant rather than racist in it's intent. This certainly can relay multiple meanings depending upon who you ask.

I see both sides here, I really do, but I don't want to see our ability to laugh at each other's differences villified and swept under the rug under a banner of ethnic neutrality.

That can make things worse in the long run I think.

I'm sorry, but I fail to the see the humor in making fun of someone's skin color, especially in a social context where darker skin is vicariously maligned and exoticized/fetished. A white girl in high school tried to make a joke about me being a slave and I was confused. I wondered what she meant and she put her arm next to mine, meaning that because I have brown skin, I'm a slave. I was not amused.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

There's a huge difference in creating harmless ethnic humor and creating harmful ethnic "humor" which isn't humorous. But times have changed for some . Some people now just can't tell the difference and think every ethnic nuance is unbridled vile hate and the people who do it are hideous hatemongering monsters.

There isn't any humor behind. A "dirty" black man goes in and comes out a "clean and attractive" Chinese man.

 

[AsianActivist]

Just as bad.

Arguably the Italian one is not as bad as it takes a oppressed minority and makes him more desirable, while the chi.nese add takes an oppressed minority and portrays him as inferior. In the chi.nese add, the black guy is "bad" because he is black and the chi.nese man is "good" simply because he is chi.nese.

The racists will tell you that nobody complains when it's the other way around because when it's the other way around it isn't giving racial messages against miscegenation.

 

[Twilight Hue]

There isn't any humor behind. A "dirty" black man goes in and comes out a "clean and attractive" Chinese man.

The black dude was depicted as dirty. Not "dirty".

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Arguably the Italian one is not as bad as it takes a oppressed minority and makes him more desirable, while the chi.nese add takes an oppressed minority and portrays him as inferior. In the chi.nese add, the black guy is "bad" because he is black and the chi.nese man is "good" simply because he is chi.nese.

It's still the the same principle of putting someone into a cleaning machine and them coming out a different ethnicity.

The black dude was depicted as dirty. Not "dirty".

Yes, he was depicted as dirty and unappealing, she threw him in the washer, and out he came a clean (it is a cleaning detergent afterall) and appealing Chinese man.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Yes, he was depicted as dirty and unappealing, she threw him in the washer, and out he came a clean (it is a cleaning detergent afterall) and appealing Chinese man.

...and mild manner Clark Kent wearing glasses goes into a booth and comes out as Superman
without wearing glasses. A derogatory inference towards people who wear glasses.